


Letter of Welcome

by Eliza49



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: Book: Busman's Honeymoon, Epistolary, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 13:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliza49/pseuds/Eliza49
Summary: The Dowager Duchess of Denver's letter to Harriet (as mentioned in Busman's Honeymoon) after Peter and Harriet become engaged.(I know Peter's mother seems kind of inimitable, but I've read some wonderful versions of her on this forum which inspired me to give this a try!Thank you for reading. xxx)





	Letter of Welcome

FROM HONORIA LUCASTA, DOWAGER DUCHESS OF DENVER, TO MISS HARRIET VANE

Dear Harriet,

I hope I may begin at once with ‘Harriet’ since we are to be family. Peter has talked of you as ‘Harriet’, not ‘Miss Vane’, for years, and I feel I know you already, though of course soon we are really to know each other and I am so glad about it.

Peter rang me up this morning, so happy and excited and cross and frustrated – cross of course with the silly, old Foreign Office for sending him away at the worst possible time, spoiling what should be the best possible time for you both. It is so unfair for you to be left by yourself to face us all, rather like an antelope in a lions’ den, and I hope you shan’t mind it too much. (I was about to write dragon’s den, but after all, who can say what it is that dragons actually eat?) What I really want to tell you is how happy I am that you are marrying Peter, and hope that you are happy and that you shall be happy in marriage – goodness, what a lot of happies, but then I am happy so there is no other way of saying it.

Do let me know when you will be back from Oxford, so that I may come and see you – and of course you must dine here – I am so looking forward to it, and then I can say ‘welcome to the family’ properly, which is what this letter is for, although I haven’t actually said it yet. Welcome to the family, my dear, and do come and see me as soon as you can.

Reading over this letter I see I have written it just like my diary, all in a rush and a muddle. Peter when he has a letter from me writes back ‘dash it all, mater’ – meaning that I really have dashed it all off. Or perhaps that I have used too many dashes – I must ask him. You who write such splendid, beautiful sentences with just the right number of full-stops must forgive me, though in fact it is a compliment that I write to you as if you were my diary, which I have kept since I was quite a young girl – so comical to look back at how afraid I was being presented at court to Queen Victoria, though of course she was quite a formidable, little personage with her fearful frown, and then sometimes she could be quite giddy and gay after all.

Thinking of you, I read this morning the entry I wrote when I spoke with my own future mother-in-law after becoming engaged. She was another formidable personage but not at all little – Peter once said she resembled an ocean liner – so naughty but true, I’m afraid. She descended on my mother’s house exactly like a dragon – or rather like a duchess, which in some cases is much the same thing. Such an ordeal for a young girl, especially in those days since one met one’s husband doing the season, and debutantes were up late and allowed champagne and all sorts of excitement, and I had the most rotten head that morning and suddenly there was my future mama-in-law bellowing away at me about the county, the hunt, the horror of the constituency turning Liberal one day and who knew what else.

You may rest assured, my dear, I shall do my best not to be like a dragon or a liner when we meet, so I hope you shan’t think of me as a foolish, Victorian relic. Though at my age one cannot help being a bit of a relic and a little foolish too and one is at a disadvantage meeting young people once one is introduced everywhere with ‘Dowager’ – so dowdy and cobwebby and miserable-sounding. My grandson, Jerry, endeavours to keep me up-to-date about what is new and fashionable but really since he is quite as mischievous as his Uncle Peter, and not nearly so well informed, I fear he makes up all sorts of things just to tease me.

In any case I hope very much that we shall be friends, and I do think Peter will make a splendid husband, though I suppose I shouldn’t say so myself. But he always was sweet and funny as well as absurdly clever, and humour is so useful in marriage, so I think he will make a good job of it especially as he has the right companion. He is so very happy, as am I, my dear. Do get in touch soon –

With fondest regards,

Honoria Denver


End file.
